The Ontario Junior Hockey League announced Tuesday, the 35-year-old Belleville native and former NHLer is the recipient of the 2019-20 season Coach of the Year.

Smith guided his troops to 43-9-2-0 record and won the Brant Snow Memorial Trophy as OJHL regular season champions. Top seeds in the playoffs, they swept the Cobourg Cougars and were to play the Trenton Golden Hawks in the East Division final when the coronavirus pandemic cancelled the remainder of the OJHL season.

As a true competitor, the cancellation of the remainder of the season left the former Ottawa Senator with a case of, is-that-all-there-is syndrome?

“Don’t get me wrong – I’m thrilled and very honoured to be chosen and I think it speaks volumes of the season we had here in Wellington and the work our staff did in getting all the right pieces here,” he told The Intelligencer Wednesday morning. “We had home-ice throughout the playoffs and thought we were in complete control of our own destiny and now, well, we don’t really have any closure to the season. I’m really disappointed for the guys that we didn’t get to play Trenton, because it rarely happens that these two teams meet in the playoffs and I know our guys were really excited about it.”

Smith spent four years patrolling the Dukes blueline from 2000 -2004 and was a part of the team’s first Dudley Hewitt championship and Royal Bank Cup appearance in Charlottetown, PEI in 2003.

After a four-year NCAA career at Lake Superior University, he enjoyed a decade-long pro career including stops with both Ottawa and Calgary in the NHL.

He re-joined the Dukes as an assistant coach midway through the 2018 campaign when the club hired former Washington Capital John Druce to replace head coach Scott McCrory.

He was named head coach prior to this season when Druce stepped down.

The organization “couldn’t be more proud” of its home-grown head coach, said Wellington general manager Todd Reid.

“He wants to win championships, sure,” Reid said. “But Derek is also constantly communicating with players, trying to support them and get them on to the next level. Obviously, the hockey knowledge is there, but the players can tell that he cares about them and he communicates that very well.”

Smith praised the ownership and management group in Wellington for identifying players who were both talented and solid citizens this season.

“We had a bunch of young men who just wanted to be Dukes. It made my job a lot easier coming to the rink,” he said.

“We got off to a good start but, obviously, had some growing pains there in late November and December, with a lot of guys coming in and out. But we responded the last half of the year and had a phenomenal end to the year. And we were looking forward to a long playoff run.”

Smith said with the season ending the way it did, it’s been very difficult to say goodbye to players, especially the graduates.

“Hopefully at some point we can have a banquet and get all the guys back together, but we’ve done some exit interviews over the phone and it’s really quite sad,” he said. “We had an exceptional leadership group here this year and a lot of those guys are moving on and will be tough to see go. But at the same time, we have a really good crop of players returning and I’m sure some of those guys will make the step into leadership rolls.

“Todd and our entire front office do such a tremendous job every year and I’m sure it’s business as usual and they are trying to find the pieces to replace the guys moving on.”

Vince Bellissimo of the Toronto Jr. Canadiens was runner-up for coach of the year honours. Bellissimo, 37, was named the sixth head coach in franchise history last April. The Jr. Canadiens (38-10-2-4) won the South Division regular season title this season before losing to the North York Rangers in the first round of the 2020 playoffs.